Last night, I tried to mend my husband’s jeans. I wanted to try the darning feature on my little Brother. Thread nests!!!!!!!

There seems to be something about the bobbins, but, I tried a new bobbin out of the pack. The only bobbins I can depend on are the 4 that came with the machine.

Anyway, I tried 2 different colors of thread on the machine. I had white thread on the bottom and a blue thread on the top. I was sewing on the cotton that I’ve used for a muslin. All of the garbled threads on the bottom are blue. The white thread forms a straight line.

If I guessed, the thread is looping around the bobbin case and getting caught. Eventually, enough threads mass up to stop the machine from sewing. The bobbin case is totally bound in threads.

Is there anything that I might be doing wrong? What else can I check? I’ve threading and re-threaded, cleaned, dusted and brushed…..what else can I do?

I would love to get past this so I can try some of the other features.

I'm not familiar with your machine, but I had a mechanical Brother that was incredibly reliable EXCEPT it absolutely, positively WOULD NOT sew if the bobbin thread was different from the needle thread. It didn't matter how I adjusted the tension, changed needles, etc (and I knew that machine and its quirks very well and could usually coax it to behave itself)... it just *refused* to cooperate if there was any difference in the threads. They had to be off the same spool.

Now. That doesn't help you FIX this, so hopefully you'll get some better answers! The heart of the problem is likely a tension issue of some sort, but there still should be some solution.

Blue - Interesting! I'll consider that. But, I have to say that this time, I started off using the same thread. I only switched because I had been having troubles and wanted to see if 2 colors would give me other possibilities.

I am wondering if this has happened before or only with the jeans? I have run into this when the material was too thick and the feed dogs didn't move the fabric. Were you using a walking foot? If you put this thread under "sewing machines" you might get some people to help who have this machine.

I have 2 different brother machines, neither are the same model as yours. On both of my machines the presser foot MUST be raised when threading the top thread or the machine will not be threaded correctly. I don't lower the presser foot until ready to thread the needle. Could this be the problem?

Thanks everybody!! I've got a totally new theory on this. Weekends are my best time of the week for taking the machine to the dealer, so I sewed up a sample and let the machine totally bind itself up. Then, I took it to the dealer and with the hope that he could find out what was wrong. He said that the top was mis-threaded.

He cleaned up the web of threads and rethreaded the top and bottom. I thanked him and took it home. But, my sample threads were red and I wanted a blue gray thread for the jeans that I need to fix. So, I put a new bottom thread in. It worked fine with his top thread and my replacement bobbin. I replaced the top thread and it started acting up again. Ok, for what it is worth, at this point I think that it may be my threading. It is a really new machine for me.

Best way to thread these is with the foot up, hold the thread tight in 1 hand and guide it with your other hand. Make suse the take up lever is threaded, and when the foot is down you will feel some tension on the thread. Not a good idea to keep sewing once machine starts to jam as the thread nest will lift up the bobbincase and making it easy for the needle to hit. That will result in timing issues and need for a new bobbincase.

See if there is a You-tube video showing the threading. I recently got a serger and was stumped by one piece. You tube had a video about how to thread it and I saw what I was doing wrong. You couldn't tell from the manual. It is probably something simple that you are doing wrong. At least you know that it is your threading. You will get this eventually!
This idea might not work. I looked and couldn't find a video showing you how to thread this machine. I found videos that demonstrate your machine and I am in love. There were other videos that show how to thread other Brother machines-I don't know if that will help you. Sorry, I am not much help. -- Edited on 10/1/11 7:57 PM --

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